Israeli Envoy: Summit Possible

CAIRO, EGYPT — President Hosni Mubarak and veteran Israeli envoy Ezer Weizman met Tuesday in talks that raised hopes for the first Egyptian-Israeli summit meeting in nearly four years.

The two men met for two hours at the Kubbeh presidential palace in Cairo after Weizman arrived from Jerusalem Monday on a diplomatic mission criticized by right-wingers in Israel`s coalition government.

Weizman, a former defense minister who played a role in negotiations that led to the U.S.-mediated peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in 1979, said the talks encouraged hopes for a summit meeting between Mubarak and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

``I am sure that when the two gentlemen meet, they will find common language, not only to solve problems but to develop new ideas and go forward,`` said Weizman, who was expected to return home Thursday.

It would be the first summit between the leaders of Egypt and Israel since the summer of 1981, when former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat met in the southern Israeli resort of Eilat a few months before Sadat was assassinated in Cairo.

Since the signing of the 1979 peace treaty, Egypt`s relations with Israel soured over the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the Palestinian refugee camp massacres in Beirut and the failure to settle a border dispute over Taba, a stretch of Israeli-occupied desert overlooking the Gulf of Aqaba.

Israel has complained about the slow pace in normalizing bilateral relations with its Arab neighbor.